It just doesn’t seem all that important to ask if white
folks and black folks listen to music the same way.
It’s about the music, right?
The music is the thing, it’s an ancient part of our human
culture and our lives.
Still, the question is out there.
In a New York Times review of a couple books about the richly
notorious Beale Street in Memphis and all the music that got started there,
James Gavin reports a bit of repartee from Al Bell, former co-owner of Stax
Records in Memphis. Stax had an impressive stable of big names: Otis Redding,
Wilson Pickett and others. Bell told their story in just a few words: “When the
white audiences discovered us, we didn’t get whiter—they got blacker.”
Years ago I saw a video of a session Wynton Marsalis
did with black high school kids in New York City. He played his trumpet, and
talked a bit. One of the kids asked him something like “When you play for white
folks, is it different than when you play for black folks?” The world-renowned jazzman took a moment, then
said “No, it’s pretty much the same no matter who loves my music….except, white
folks snap their fingers on the downbeat.”
Hey, listen with whatever finger you like, that’s what I
say.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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